The first European farmer to be hit by an outbreak of bird flu has described how he was shocked to discover 400 of his flock of turkeys had dropped dead in one night. The confirmation of the first H5N1 virus at a commercial farm in the EU has thrown France's €6bn (£4.1bn) poultry industry into chaos. Yesterday another case of bird flu was reported in Germany's Brandenburg province and Swiss authorities confirmed their first cases of bird flu but were carrying out further tests to establish if the birds had the H5N1 strain. France also reported that H5N1 had killed another 15 wild swans in the southeast. Daniel Clair was forced to destroy his flock of 11,000 turkeys after the deaths on Thursday at his farm in the Ain region of south-east France. "I found 400 bodies and the others were already very sick," he told the newspaper Le Parisien. "It struck like lightning." A 3km (1.9-mile) protection ring - inside a 10km observation zone - has been thrown around the farm. ... http://www.guardian.co.uk

The Mexican government and military committed "crimes against humanity" in the so-called "dirty war" against left-wing rebels, a leaked report says. The report was prepared for current President Vicente Fox but has not been released. A US NGO has printed material saying Mexicans had a right to know. The army kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of rebel suspects, says the report, which covers 1964 to 1982. Mexico's special prosecutor says the report is biased and has been revised. The draft report's authors write: "The authoritarian attitude with which the Mexican state wished to control social dissent created a spiral of violence which... led it to commit crimes against humanity, including genocide." They say they base their findings partly on declassified military, police and interior ministry documents and list for the first time the names of officers allegedly involved in the abuses. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4755682.stm

The Supreme Court refused Monday to directly consider whether the drug combination used in executions across the country amounts to unconstitutional cruel punishment.The justices had already agreed to hear arguments in April in a case brought by Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill about the procedure for lethal injection challenges to be filed in federal court.Monday’s decision, which came on a separate appeal by Hill’s lawyer, has little practical significance because Hill’s other case is still pending....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11590821/from/RSS/

ON THE United States’s southwestern border with Mexico, politicians are no longer sitting on the fence about illegal immigration. Instead, with elections looming, they are busy spending huge sums building real ones to stem the flow of an estimated 500,000 undocumented workers from Mexico each year. Federal funding of $30 million (£17 million) has just been allocated for completion of a third fence, running in parallel with two barriers set up around San Diego in California over the past decade. A congressional plan to spend a further $2.2 billion, extending double-fence fortification 800 miles eastwards, awaits approval. But these are precisely the type of low-wage construction projects that America usually gets Mexicans to do. Indeed the Golden State Fence Co, which calls itself “the top fence contractor in California,” was recently caught, for the second time in as many years, employing illegal immigrants. Federal investigators have found that 157 of its employees, roughly a ...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2060156,00.html

About two dozen hurricane evacuees living on a cruise ship south of New Orleans were taking the federal government to court Monday in a bid to keep the ship docked and the government paying for it.Their lawsuit claims the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to provide alternative housing and had shown no evidence it would by Wednesday, FEMA’s deadline for releasing the cruise ships it had rented.“FEMA has bungled its assignment,” the lawsuit alleges. “FEMA acted incompetently before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina struck, and failed to heed warnings and take preventive actions that could have saved lived and alleviated suffering.”...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11589975/from/RSS/

Microsoft is planning six versions of the next incarnation of its Windows operating system. Three versions of the software, called Vista, will be for home users, two will be for businesses and one will be for emerging markets. One of the home versions of Vista will include features that let users store and play back TV shows. No fixed date has been given for the release of Vista but it is expected to be launched by the end of 2006. Vista, which was known as Longhorn during its long development, is a major re-working of Windows that makes changes, among other things, to the way the operating system looks and how it handles networking and sound. Microsoft said the six versions were designed to match the demands different users have for its software. No details have been given about the pricing of the separate versions. The six versions are: ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4754462.stm